Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is one of world's top business and leadership experts. He is the author of 35 books, including the most recent bestseller ‎Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be. This and another of Marshall's books were ranked by Amazon as two of the top 100 leadership and success books of all times. In fact, he is the number one leadership thinker in the world! Around 1,500 people around the globe are certified in the process he uses for leadership coaching, and tens of thousands use the process.

Marshall has flown 13 million miles and been to 92 countries on his journey as an executive coach. He got his PhD at UCLA in organizational behavior and accidentally fell into his field of executive coaching while working as a college professor. He is generally hired by the current CEO to coach the future CEO, by the board to coach the current CEO, or by the CEO to coach themselves. He offers a guarantee that if his client's behavior isn't changed after an agreed to period of time, he doesn't get paid.

The coaching process begins with Marshall interviewing everyone around the client, which can include direct reports, peers, and board members. He then develops a profile about the client's performance and reviews it with them. The client is required to follow-up with people around them and with Marshall. He has found that there are certain behaviors that coaching cannot fix such as someone that isn't motivated or has already been written off by their company. Also, he will not deal with integrity problems or functional issues. Marshall is in the business of helping winners, not fixing losers.

Along with executive coaching, Marshall spends his time writing, speaking, and recording videos for YouTube. He gives away all of his material... people can download and share any way they wish. He believes it is the kind thing to do as he has plenty of money, but it also saves him a lot of trouble since he doesn't have to worry about anyone stealing his material.

Jessica Mah is the founder and CEO of inDinero, one of the bay area's hottest companies. We met in Israel in 2009 when Jessica was just getting started building the company's software with her computer science background. Today, inDinero has 200 employees across 5 locations. Their purpose is to help businesses with accounting and taxes, like an outsourced finance department. One of Jessica's goals for her organization as it expands is to handle growth gracefully and retain culture along the way.

One thing that sets inDinero apart from other companies is their interesting and unique talent practices. Jessica coined ABF talent as a way of rating team members and their performance. A employees are ones that she would enthusiastically rehire given what she knows about them today. B employees are ones that she might rehire but need to show improvement. These team members are put on a program to enhance their performance. Then at the end of the quarter, they will either be fixed or be fired. Jessica is a firm believer that harboring mediocrity is not conducive to good results. Her ranking system has proven very successful in transforming B players into A players.

Another unique practice at inDinero is that they do not use e-mail internally. Instead, they converse via group chat rooms and messengers. This prevents employees from being held hostage in group email threads that unnecessarily fill up their mental bandwidth. All of the executives also use a special calendar grid that is tailored to the way that they want to spend their work week. This helps reduce stress and increase productivity. inDinero has a distinct hiring process to improve the odds of successful hiring and they also have high employee referrals. Jessica attributes much of the organization's growth and triumph to their values, such as radical candor and transparency.

Miguel Gamino is a self-proclaimed "accidental public servant" now working as the Chief Information Officer for the city and county of San Francisco. He was on a little break after starting a couple of tech companies in his hometown in Texas when he was approached by the city manager. Even though it was not an intentional career path, Miguel was convinced to do his civic duty by helping to reshape the technical organization for that city government. He stayed for over two years before being recruited by San Francisco. As the CIO of what is thought to be the center of the tech universe, there are major expectations for Miguel but he believes it is a good challenge.

Miguel was appointed by the mayor to lead the tech strategy for the city and county. He is responsible for leveraging technology to improve the government and how it delivers services, and then advising the mayor and other departments. Miguel is also the department head of San Francisco's central IT department so he really gets to roll up his sleeves and make sure they are delivering daily. On top of those responsibilities, IT is now becoming a direct service provider to the public for many things.

I can't think of anyone more appropriate than Miguel to enlighten us on the 5 pillars of a connected city. First, connectivity is the foundation. We have to make sure that people across all communities and lifestyles are connected. San Francisco is now offering free WiFi access with top speeds in a number of public spaces. They also want to offer a choice of connectivity at home that is equitable and accessible. The other pillars are digital service, delivering technology as a service, talent, and cybersecurity. When Miguel thinks of living and working in a connected world, he thinks of the unimaginable. The investments and decisions we are making today around the value and impact of connectivity will have a chain effect that we can't expect to fathom.

Dr. Christine Geith is the CEO at eXtension, which is part of the Cooperative Extension System. She has worked in higher education at two universities, including Michigan State most recently. Her specialty is online learning. About three years ago, Christine got involved in refreshing the conversation about the Cooperative Extension System's digital strategy and knowledge dissemination to the public,. Her goal is to help the system's professionals increase their measurable local impact.

The Cooperative Extension System was founded 100 years ago and includes 120 institutions that have different types of funding from the federal government. It is basically a network of people in every county across the United States that is responsible for spreading research based science and innovation to families, communities, and farmers. They share information about food systems, production, family nutrition, solutions for obesity and chronic disease, community prosperity, starting small businesses, protecting and managing natural resources, extreme climate and weather change responses, and more!

Christine believes that the system is America's best kept secret. It was created by the people, for the people and is the largest informal learning network across the country. There are at least 15,000 people involved in the extension offices that are spread over the US. Different states have different priorities so the role of extension in economic development will be different depending on the goals of each state. The programs that emerge from the Cooperate Extension System create opportunities and evolve as the needs of communities change.

Cooperate extension helps people adopt new ways of living, working, and creating livelihood so prosperity and health are increased across the country. Even after 100 years, the system continues to be a priority funded by the USDA and the states. Agriculture is the root of the system, but not the limit of its scope. Due to the incredible variety of resources that it offers, it remains resilient and adaptable.